Credit card holders affected by subprime - good!

This is a good lesson in credit card use. Unfortunately, if you carry a balance, you will be affected by the mortgage crisis. Apparently banks that also have mortgage divisions are hiking interest rates to keep profits high.

Capital One, which is among the largest credit-card issuers in the nation...said it was raising rates because it could and because of unspecified economic conditions

Shocking! A company whose only interest is in making money off of the money you borrow decides to use the clearly defined terms to make more money to offset its losses elsewhere. Hilarious is that the customer mentioned in the article seemed upset about this. Why? You agreed that they can change your rate whenever they want and you borrowed money from them anyway. If you don't care what they charge you, fine. I imagine most people do care.

This is the same kind of whining that came about when they raised the minimum payments. The immediate logical response? Good! Raising the minimum means that any idiot paying the minimum will be in debt for a little shorter time.

Now I have some sympathy for someone who is deep in credit card debt and struggling to become debt free. They made a mistake, are paying for it, and hopefully will learn for it. Of course if you are neck deep in credit debt and you charge a single dime to that card, my sympathy evaporates.

Here's the thing about credit cards. You borrow their money for a month and pay it back, you get charged nothing. That is the only way to use credit cards, unless you like playing with fire and you're borrowing money to invest in the market. Any balance you carry you will pay interest and you will pay whatever rate they want to charge you.

If you are paying interest on your card, cut it up. Now. You do not know how to use them.